The 2013 Art Basel Hong Kong Exhibitor List Is Out

A year and a half after snapping up a majority stake in the Art Hong Kong fair, the Art Basel group is readying the debut edition of Art Basel Hong Kong, as it has rechristened the fair, and today released the list of 245 exhibitors that will present work at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre from May 23 through 26. (The full list follows below.)

More than 30 galleries with spaces in New York have been accepted into the fair this year, including Marian Goodman, Acquavella, Gladstone, Galerie Lelong, Gagosian, David Zwirner, Peter Blum and 303, the last two as first-time participants. The Lower East Side’s Lisa Cooley is also in the mix, showing in the fair’s new Discoveries section, for one- and two-person shows, which has a $25,000 prize for best booth.

Those New York dealers will join a bevy of their Asia-based colleagues. “We’ve been very struck by the quality of the galleries coming from Asia and the Asia-Pacific region,” Magnus Renfrew, who served as director of Art HK since its inception and whose title is now Director Asia of Art Basel, told Gallerist in a telephone interview from Hong Kong. More than half of exhibitors hail from the region, including 47 galleries in a new section called Insights, devoted to art from those areas.

Marc Spiegler, who was promoted to the head of Basel’s four-member executive committee after five years as co-director of Art Basel, noted that this emphasis on the region parallels the dealer demographics of the December’s annual Miami Beach, Fla., edition of Basel, which is heavy on galleries from the Americas, and the Basel, Switzerland, edition, which prominently features European galleries each June. “It was important to keep the same rootedness in the region,” Mr. Spiegler said.

Where ABHK might face some complications is with what has become a jam-packed art-fair calendar. This year, it comes just two weeks after the sophomore edition of Frieze New York (last year it came one week after), meaning that some dealers (and maybe even collectors) have to make tough choices about where to spend their capital, and their time. “I think that galleries really have to make a decision about where they’re investing their energy,” Mr. Spiegler said, when asked about potential competition between the two fairs. “A lot of galleries have been putting effort into building their audience in Asia.”

“The market is in a relatively early stage of development here,” Mr. Renfrew said. Mr. Spiegler echoed that feeling, comparing today’s market in Hong Kong to that which existed 10 years ago in Miami, during the first few editions of Art Basel Miami Beach. “To be taken seriously as an international gallery or museum, you can’t just focus on the West,” he said. “You feel that culture is growing more important here. We want to be part of a culture surge in this really dynamic city.